Mandelbrot’s time at Yale is punctuated with the institution’s highest honor. He observes twice, both in his life and in the goals identified by Yale’s math department that there was a strategy for setting out on goals that were ‘odd and unreachable’, that can lead to great things. Yale hired him based on a desire to be ‘different’, not ‘lesser’.

Best Quote(s)

“THE ART OF RECEIVING new offers and fast promotions has always baffled me, but I have been lucky on a few occasions.” 4200

Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractalist, Chapter 27, Location 4200

Mandelbrot’s name is now well known and distinct, but his life is full of big offers and promotions that go unfilled. There is a fractal nature to his life – rarely smooth, and often rough. How many autobiographies are smoothed out in the re-telling and remembering of a life?

“I had often demonstrated the capacity to formulate big dreams that everyone else held to be odd and unreachable—but that I managed to fulfill.” 4253

Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractalist, Chapter 27, Location 4253

Mandelbrot’s self aware comment matches his insight about his new academic home, Yale, earlier in the chapter, “… they had decided to replace “lesser” with “different”—in particular, by expanding less abstract topics.”

Page by Page, Screen by Screen, Swipe by Swipe – 5 Mandelbrot Quotes

4200

“THE ART OF RECEIVING new offers and fast promotions has always baffled me, but I have been lucky on a few occasions.”

Adjunct Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale

4217

“The Yale mathematics department disliked being ranked below Princeton and Harvard, and they had decided to replace “lesser” with “different”—in particular, by expanding less abstract topics.”

4226

Yale – 17 years more

IBM retire – 2 years of perks, but 13 more.

“So we never moved, and missed much of Yale collegiality—a clear loss.”

4230

“Commuting by car was tedious, and Aliette went beyond the call of duty by being the driver and enjoying Yale while I was working.”

4243

Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale

4253

“I had often demonstrated the capacity to formulate big dreams that everyone else held to be odd and unreachable—but that I managed to fulfill.”